TO WHICH IS ADDED A CHAPTER ON "SHOEING" BY WILLIAM DAY FIFTH EDITION MAN LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL LIMITED 1885 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY GIFT OF LEDYARD WORTHINGTON SARGENT Bungag: CLAY AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, PREFACE. IN bringing before the public a work that has for its specific subject the training of the racehorse, and incidentally offers some observations on turf matters generally, the author feels the need of its indulgence. The experience gathered as the result of thirty years unwearied labour in the management of a large racing-stud, is, he feels, the best apology he can put forward for the attempt to write comprehensively on matters never before so treated by a trainer. In order to inform, to please, and to encourage the student, a thorough knowledge of the subject must be supplemented by facts clearly stated, and by arguments based on experiences that have stood the test of time. It is perhaps too common to represent technical or professional matters as full of mystery to the unlearned. Such a pretence would be out of place here. Our subject is one easy of comprehension, and it is the intention and desire of the writer to apply to it the simple treatment of which it is susceptible; to set forth practical knowledge and important and ascertained truths deduced from daily observation in a nanner intelligible to the ordinary reader. |